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During my recent travels, my light reading consisted of several thick books on the Mitford girls, the six daughters of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale and his wife Sydney (née Bowles).
Diana Mitford became the wife of Sir Oswald Mosley. Unity Valkyrie Mitford became Hitler’s confidante. Jessica became a Communist journalist. Nancy became a novelist and biographer. Deborah, who is still alive at 92, became the Duchess of Devonshire. Pamela, the least famous daughter, shared the politics of Diana and Unity but was best known as a poultry farmer.
The Mitford girls were impossibly glamorous, talented, accomplished, headstrong, and brilliant. Their aristocratic birth and connections, as well as their personal initiative, thrust them to the heart of European politics and culture. Thus their biographies also constitute a highly entertaining history of the 20th century.
My favorite Mitfords are, of course, Diana and her younger sister Unity Valkyrie, who was born 98 years ago today. Unity Mitford was conceived in Canada in the town of Swastika, Ontario. She was named Unity because of her parents’ desire for Anglo-German unity: they hoped for a swift, peaceful, negotiated end to the First World War, which had just broken out. Her middle name, Valkyrie, a Norse warrior maiden, was given to her because of her paternal grandfather’s friendship with Richard Wagner and Wagner’s son-in-law, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, whose writings influenced Hitler’s understanding of Jews, race, and history. When Hitler learned these facts from Unity, he interpreted their meeting as providential.
Unity became interested in Fascism and National Socialism through her older sister Diana, who was first the mistress then wife of Sir Oswald Mosley. (They were married in 1936 in Berlin, at the home of Joseph Goebbels, with Hitler as the guest of honor.) Unity was an ardent and tireless street activist for the British Union of Fascists. In 1933, she attended the first Nuremberg Rally, where she fell under Hitler’s spell. In 1934, she moved to Munich, where eventually she made Hitler’s acquaintance and moved rapidly into his inner circle, enjoying unusual access and confidence for a foreigner. Whispers of a sexual affair have never been confirmed, but Unity’s presence in Hitler’s circle led to a suicide attempt by Eva Braun.
For those who wish to know more about the Mitfords, I recommend Jonathan and Catherine Guinness, The House of Mitford: Portrait of a Family
I also recommend, with the same caveats, a very entertaining documentary about Unity, Hitler’s British Girl, linked on our Video of the Day page here.
Finally, I wish to thank Leo Yankevich and Juleigh Howard-Hobson for their poems about Unity, which I wrung from them under false pretenses. A friend told me that today is Unity Mitford’s 100th birthday, when in fact it is her 98th, something I learned only after requesting their poems.
Unity Mitford’s short life is fascinating not merely for what she was but also for what she could have been — and what could have been for all of us. For the lives of both Diana and Unity are entwined around one of the great “what ifs” of European history: What if the Second World War could have been avoided? Diana and Unity Mitford were merely the most glamorous of the many prominent and accomplished Englishmen and Englishwomen who worked to secure the Anglo-German friendship that Hitler so ardently desired.
When Britain started the Second World War by declaring war against Germany on September 3, 1939, Unity Valkyrie Mitford took a pistol given to her by Hitler, went to the Englischer Garten in Munich, and shot herself in the head. Astonishingly, she did not die immediately. Her wound finally took her life only in May of 1948, after she had lived to see all the horrors she wanted to avoid through death.
9 Comments
They were the Bronte sisters of fascism!
Would the tragedy of WW2 have actually been avoided if an Anglo-German friendship had taken place?
There was still the US and the Soviet Union.
Yes, but if the British had not started the war, the US probably would not have gotten involved. Moreover, when Stalin attacked Europe, as was his plan all along, the British, US, etc. probably would have come in on the German side, and that would have been the end of Bolshevism.
I really doubt that Stalin would ever have attacked Europe if the Germans and Brits were officially allies. He was a very cautious man, above all.
The Canadian content was a surprise but appreciated. I went to “Earth Google” and typed in the address and was surprised, nay shocked, to learn that the town is still there! Funny that they never cashed in on the girls the way Quebec cashed in on the Dionne Quintuplets. The town could even find room for a tribute to Trudeau who is said to have driven around town in his youth with the symbol that we all love to hate. .
The Mitford girls were all born years apart.
I wish we could start some sort of reading club on CC, with a book of the month and subsequent discussion forum or if Greg would update us about what he is reading so we can follow the growth of his intellect.
Agreed. That would be fun. Help us all think more critically.
If you are interested in the Mitfords, especially Unity Mitford, and wish to buy a book on them do NOT buy David Rehak’s book “David Rehak, Hitler’s English Girlfriend: Unity Mitford and the Fascist Connection”. Truly awfully written and while based on fact it is VERY LOOSELY based on it. No sense of the period, the Mitford family and even the true. Very sad effort from a very bad writer.